The Twin
by TintedElements
Summary: Written for a oneshot story prompt: What if Mikado was the owner of the true Saika? - Written by SaphiraIce


Izaya Orihara was amused.

He had wanted to blackmail Takashi after capturing him, but it seemed that was now not necessary anymore since the real Saika appeared. It could be a problem, or might not be. It all depended on whether his calculations were right or not, but they were mostly right anyway. And that would mean that the only possible person to be in possession of the true Saika would be the only daughter of the late antique shop owner; that girl -was her name Anri-chan?- who was friends with Masaomi-kun and Mikado-kun. If that was it than all the better for him.

The three best of friends, the three leaders of the leading groups and gangs of Ikebukuro, didn't seem to know about each other's' true identities!

Ah! How fun! If all went according to plan, then this would surely be a show to enjoy.

Giggling like a child who was promised some candy, Izaya could not help but feel the excitement of it all as he spun around on his chair.

* * *

A girl hid behind a tree as she sighed in relief. She was glad that Kadota-san, Shizuo-san and Celty-san showed up to help out Anri-chan. What would she have done if her dear Anri-chan would have been slashed?

It would have been her fault entirely.

She needed to find out who the rogue Saika was and quickly deal with it, before anymore harm was done. But for now she'd have to follow Anri home, just to make sure that she arrived safely at her appartement.

Anri was quite the careful girl and it was difficult to follow her while making sure that the other didn't notice her. She was about to leave as Anri returned home safely, but then she saw another girl approach Anri's appartement. The girl hidden in the shadows of a building recognised the other to be Haruna, the one Kida-kun said was apparently in a relationship with that strange teacher, Nasujima-sensei. She had looked up whatever she could find about Haruna after that.

Haruna only seemed like trouble and that made the girl decide to stay for a while longer, just to make sure that Anri-chan was safe. After all, she had searched so long for Anri and now that she had finally found her, she wasn't planning on losing her just like that again.

She wasn't planning on losing her younger twin sister again.

Haruna seemed to talk with Anri for a while at the door, before Anri let the other girl in reluctantly. Anri's sister needed to get closer and make sure that that Haruna girl didn't do anything to Anri, but with Anri in the house and the door probably locked anyway she saw no way to spy on what was happening inside. She sighed as she sat down on the floor and waited.

And hoped that nothing bad happened.

A while later sitting in silence she noticed Nasujima-sensei approach Anri's appartement. What was that creep doing here? She stood up, more aware now and watched as the door opened. She wasn't sure what happened but it seemed that the teacher was scared and ran off. When he did, she noticed why. There at the door Haruna stood, knife in hand. The crazed girl said something to Anri before dashing off after the teacher.

That's when it clicked in Anri's sister's mind. Haruna was that rogue Saika she had been looking for and it sure looked like Saika took control of her. She was about to run after Haruna, but she noticed people with red eyes approach Anri's appartement.

This was bad. She could not allow Anri to experience what happened so long ago again. No, Anri-chan should be allowed to live a life without having to encounter Saika ever again. She dashed out without much thinking and drew her katana, Saika, out of her hand and slashed each of the attackers once, efficiently taking control over them.

Quickly she turned to look at her sister. "Are you alright Anri-chan?" Her voice filled with worry.

Anri though, could only stare in shock for a while, which seemed to last way too long. "Who-?" That's when Anri finally noticed exactly who stood in front of her. "Eri-chan?!" Those deep dark blue eyes, she'd never forget them. There were so many questions she wanted to ask her long lost sister, but her sister seemed to be in a rush.

It wasn't hard to figure out that the two sisters would need some time alone to talk to each other and sort things out. But now just wasn't the time. Anri sighed, she really wanted to talk to her, but for now she was just relieved that her sister was alive and well. "Will I see you again?"

"Don't worry, I'll always be nearby. Just... be careful." Eri said and shot a smile at her sister before taking off to following Haruna.

Those last words _'just... be careful'_ ran through Anri's head refusing to get out. Where had she heard those exact words before? Wasn't it just yesterday when someone said those exact words to her?

* * *

"Stop!" Eri finally caught up to Haruna and was just in time to save the sorry excuse of a teacher. Even if he was a disgusting person, there wasn't any reason for him to be killed.

Haruna turned around to see a girl with rather short messy black hair and deep blue eyes. "Ha? And who might you be?"

"That doesn't concern you. Just stop trying to slash that man dead over there!"

Haruna was apparently not very pleased with that answer. "What will you do anyway if I don't? Who are you to tell me whether I can express my love for him or not?!" With that she charged at Eri without a second thought. But much to the older girl's surprise her knife was swiftly blocked with a katana. Seemingly without much effort Eri pushed Haruna back.

"This..." The shorter girl said as she repositioned her katana in a fighting stance. "...is the real Saika." She watched as Haruna's eyes widened visibly at that and continued, "I'm sure you know what happens when I slash you with this." Not giving Haruna anymore time to react, Eri charged at the long haired girl and stabbed her in the arm with her katana. "I don't fancy killing anyone, but this is payback for what you put my sister through." She said as she pulled the katana out and Haruna dropped unconscious onto the ground.

"W-Who are y-you?!"

Damn it. She had almost forgotten about the stupid teacher. "None of your concern, unless you try anything funny with Anri-chan again, then it'll be your concern and I can't say just yet how much you'll suffer." The last part was said with the friendliest smile she could muster and with that Nasujima practically ran away screaming for his life, which satisfied Eri a bit, since she never managed to help her sister out when that idiot was hitting on her, because Kida-san would always be faster.

With this the slasher incidents would finally come to a stop and she would be able to enjoy her everyday life once more without having to worry for her sister's safety all the time. After all, since all those years back when their father had been more violent than usual and their mother took control of Saika herself for a while to make sure that her children were safe, before killing herself before Saika took over their mother, Anri had been scared to death. In other words, since then Anri had a sort of aichmophobia, fear of sharp objects. Although Anri's case wasn't so severe and she would only start to panic when the sharp object was pointed at someone in a dangerous manner.

Naturally they were separated after that incident. Anri being the first one to be adopted at the orphanage they were dumped into not long after, all their relatives stating they didn't want anything to do with the cursed pair.

She herself had been adopted two years later after by a rather strange couple. They had wanted to adopt a boy, but there weren't any in the orphanage at that time. Still for some reasons they had decided that Eri would do, but had made it clear to her that she'd have to pretend to be a boy, other than that the couple were really friendly people. They never told her their reasons for that, but she gladly accepted. After all staying in the orphanage gave her no possibilities of ever finding her sister again.

Later on, she had found out that they had wanted a sort of replacement for their deceased child while she was digging in their photo albums in her new home's cellar one day. It was kind of obvious, seeing as the child had a lot of photos, but they had abruptly stopped two months before she had been adopted by the pair. From the dates on the photos and the pictures themselves, she had assumed that the boy was supposed to be around her age and that he died when he was six years old. She decided not to question them on it, as it would probably have been a bad decision. And besides, both of them got what they had longed for: the pair had gotten 'their child' back, while Eri had gotten a pair of loving parents.

Only... She had felt really lonely without her sister. Her sister was the one who brought her out of that pit of darkness after all. Eri owed her life to her sister. She lived only thanks to all of Anri's effort after all.

* * *

Anri woke up in her apartment, the last nights happenings all coming back to her. She must have passed out soon after her sister left as she didn't really remember much after locking the door after watching the form of her sister disappear into the night from the door.

Anri wished she would be able to see her sister again. After all the years they had spent apart, she had thought that she'd never come to see her again. Although she was glad that it seemed that Eri was doing just fine. She had always blamed herself that Eri's live was more miserable than her own.

Their father, an antique shop owner, was known to be quite superstitious and it wasn't really a surprise that when Anri and Eri were born he'd lock one of them up in the cellar, claiming that one to be a 'taboo child'. Anri grew up the first few years without knowing of her sister's existence; only that her mother would go into the cellar every so often.

She once asked her dad about it and he just shouted at her to never enter that place because 'it was too dangerous'. But that only made her more curious and one day, when she was sure her parents weren't around, she went to explore the mysterious cellar. She didn't find anything out of the ordinary in either the boiler room or the place where they stored food, but there was one more door and it had been locked. Curiously she had peeked through the keyhole, but found that the other side was only filled with darkness.

She pouted for a moment before she started stomping off, in mock anger that she didn't find anything interesting, in the direction of the staircase leading upstairs. But she stopped in her tracks as she heard a small voice come from the locked door. "... hello? Is anyone there?" It was so soft she had almost not heard it, but she was certain it wasn't just her imagination and soon curiosity killed the cat.

She went back to the door and started talking with the stranger behind it. "Hi! I'm Anri! You are?" That is how everything started. Anri soon found out that the girl behind the door was indeed her twin sister and really wanted to see her. She didn't really want her parents to find out about her knowing of her sibling, since she had a feeling it wouldn't end well. After much searching and secretly following her mother, she found out where the key to that cellar room was kept.

And once again she found herself in front the soon-to-be-unlocked door. She had been wondering all along how her twin actually looked like and when she finally found out she was surprised that they didn't really look alike at all. She hadn't understood then but they were indeed fraternal twins. The first time she had seen Eri, she almost wanted to scream, much to her embarrassment now. The girl had looked just like a ghost with her long messy hair and pale skin. But somehow she had managed to keep the scream in and she had taken it upon herself to make her sister look somewhat better.

Anri got ready for school as she thought back to those silly times. She had tried to cut Eri's hair shorter, because her sister's hair was so tangled up that she couldn't brush it properly. And it ended up being really short, because she didn't want to give up until it looked somewhat good. Thinking back to the day before when Eri had saved her when she froze at the sight of the knives, her sister still had all the pins in her hair that Anri would have messily tried to stuck in. Anri felt relief as she remembered that. Her sister still kept those pins dearly.

But soon just visiting her sister in that cellar had become not enough for her. She had wanted to take her out so they would be able to play in the park; maybe even with some of her friends. Anri still wasn't sure whether that was a mistake or not, but she still remembered that although she knew Eri was enjoying herself she really didn't know how to talk with other people other than Anri. Eri had always hid behind her sister. If it were any other normal situation, it would have been actually cute considering that Eri was the older twin, but this was all but normal. Being kept in the basement for who knows how long was definitely not normal.

But soon their dad caught wind of it somehow, Anri was still not sure how, but that was probably when he first started to act strangely and started beating Anri and her mother. Eri had been spared as the girl was in the cellar most of the time and their father wouldn't go near there.

But one day, when Anri took Eri out again their father had caught them. And actually seeing them together somehow made him angry. That was the first time he had beaten up all three of the females in the house. Their mother was so worried for them and the only defense at that moment had been the katana that was being displayed on the shelf at the time.

Anri shuddered. Although her memory after her mother had grabbed the katana was hazy she knew it was anything but nice. Blood flowed everywhere. The cops had written that accident off as a burglar incident, but both her and Eri knew better.

During everything that had happened that particular night, Anri had been frozen to the spot and wasn't able to move even though her mind had been practically screaming at herself to move. Their parents had died, one taking both of their lives. The weapon of murder had stood a bit too innocently in the middle of the room. Anri vaguely remembered Eri taking hold of the weapon before it disappeared and telling her that everything would be fine now.

Anri locked the door and took a deep breath before she headed for school. Today would be like any other day. Yes, any other day. She would pretend that nothing had happened the day before. She'd meet Ryugamine-san and Kida-san at school and laugh silently at their (mainly the latter's) childish antics.

She was nearing Raira Academy now and that was when she saw Ryugamine-san and Kida-san and she ran towards them, thanking her sister that she was able to live another day. And... Ryugamine-san... she guessed she should thank him too.

"Thanks for reminding me to be more careful the day before yesterday when we split off after you had picked me up from the police box!" Anri stated as she bowed in gratitude to Mikado.

Masaomi had elbowed his childhood friend lightly in the shoulder with one of his strange expressions on his face, while he whispered something in Mikado's ear that made the blue-eyed boy blush.

Anri almost felt silly... Maybe she had just over thought things? Maybe he wasn't...?

But then she saw Mikado give her a knowing look and a small smile.

And she knew that it wasn't her imagination after all.

It seemed like her life couldn't get any more better than what it was in the moment.

* * *

Izaya Orihara was _not _amused.

He definitely did not get that candy he had wanted. How did this happen? Or rather, why didn't it happen the way he wanted it to?

Takashi went over to Anri's house as planned and at the same time Haruna was there. So why was Anri unscathed and why was Haruna found unconscious and injured in some alleyway? Izaya had thought that Anri had the real Saika. But if she didn't, then who did?

That and the fact that it seemed that Dotachin was planning to get rid of the yellow scarves so soon was unnerving to him. He had wanted a big fight.

A bloodbath.

A war.

But nothing seemed to go according to his plan.

For once, Izaya did not know what the hell was going on.


End file.
